"BaconSandwich is tasty." (baconsandwich)
06/08/2016 at 10:47 • Filed to: None
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"BaconSandwich is tasty." (baconsandwich)
06/08/2016 at 10:47 • Filed to: None | 0
| 23 |
Mostly just kind of curious, and perhaps looking for a bit of advice. Right now I’m managing a software development team of 6 or so. I’ve got several years of industry experience doing software development, but about six months ago was persuaded to take more of a managerial position. In some respects, I’m wondering if it was the right decision. My current job does keep me pretty busy (~45 hours a week), but I have been wondering lately what it would be like to do more within the automotive industry (I’m currently doing software for the agriculture industry, and have previously worked on writing software for the oil and gas industry). I certainly can’t complain about my current job - the pay is decent, but sometimes I wonder if I might be happier working on something more automotive related.
Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like there’s perhaps not a ton of software jobs within the automotive industry: you can either do embedded systems, or you can work on autonomous driving, which also probably deals with a lot of embedded systems - something I don’t have a ton of experience with. I also don’t have a background in engineering, although it is something I find interesting.
Does anyone here on Oppo work in the software within the automotive industry? If so, how do you find the work?
TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts.
> BaconSandwich is tasty.
06/08/2016 at 10:53 |
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I know Ezalis works for Land Rover’s dev arm out in Portland OR, but you’d need to move out west and I know they’ll be hiring at some point soon. I’d jump at the chance if I wasn’t tied down to the east coast (I’m a sysadmin working in the sports entertainment industry so it’s not all bad). Such is life I guess.
mcseanerson
> BaconSandwich is tasty.
06/08/2016 at 10:55 |
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I work for a manufacturer of industrial equipment used by the automotive industry and many other industries. I am basically glorified tech support. The auto industry is one of my least favorite to deal with, lots of stress, lots of hours.
Brian, The Life of
> BaconSandwich is tasty.
06/08/2016 at 11:11 |
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I’ve been in automotive enterprise SaaS for the last ~9 years (product management). I started out working for one of the “information providers” to the collision industry and am now in CRM for franchise and independent dealers. I got in the door at the first company (Mitchell) because a friend knew the hiring manager.
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BaconSandwich is tasty.
> Brian, The Life of
06/08/2016 at 11:25 |
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The particular city where I live doesn’t have a ton of software dev or automotive industry connections, but there is one place that does software that’s used by a bunch of dealerships for calculating financing. I suppose that’d be one way in.
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BaconSandwich is tasty.
> mcseanerson
06/08/2016 at 11:25 |
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Interesting. It sort of makes sense. I appreciate you sharing that, as I think that’s a viewpoint that I’ve not heard much about.
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BaconSandwich is tasty.
> TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts.
06/08/2016 at 11:27 |
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I hear you. My family is at the point where we are starting to consider buying a place. I’d hate to buy a house only to move a few months later.
JDIGGS
> BaconSandwich is tasty.
06/08/2016 at 11:31 |
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a lot of the jobs seem to be info-taint-ment :) related. It seems like a truly awful industry to work in as my family member made the transfer from silicon valley a few years ago. From what I can tell the automotive industry is hugely bloated, there are a lot of people managing and not providing any technical skills. Definitely seems like a lot more bullshit to deal with, same dog shit hours.
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TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts.
> BaconSandwich is tasty.
06/08/2016 at 11:35 |
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Yep, my wife’s mom is getting up there in years and had to do a round of chemo about a year and a half ago (they got all of the cancer fortunately) so moving to the other side of the country of her mother isn’t a thing I’d want to force my wife into doing since they’re very close.
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Brian, The Life of
> BaconSandwich is tasty.
06/08/2016 at 11:36 |
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That’s exactly how you get in. Start somewhere you can develop domain knowledge and be willing to relocate if you want to stay in “the industry.” I was fortunate that San Diego had two of the largest players in the collision space. On the positive side, if you lived in a car town like Detroit where the labor pool already has a ton of domain knowledge, it can actually be harder to break in. When I started at Mitchell, they knew it was nearly impossible to find people with specific domain knowledge so they were more interested in experience in the same position in other industries ... which thankfully I had.
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mcseanerson
> JDIGGS
06/08/2016 at 11:53 |
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^THIS.
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mcseanerson
> BaconSandwich is tasty.
06/08/2016 at 11:55 |
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Reading the other comments reminded me of someone commenting on a post I made about working on the auto industry a while back. He described working with all the big manufacturers and while I didn’t agree with all of them the one that was dead on was GM.
GM: It’s a trainwreck but they think everything is FINE.
Saracen
> Brian, The Life of
06/08/2016 at 12:52 |
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I’m in San Diego too, and I work on software for vehicles...but more of the flying, semi-autonomous kind. That carry ordnance.
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Brian, The Life of
> Saracen
06/08/2016 at 13:19 |
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Your vehicles are cooler than my vehicles.
Do you guys need a new product manager?
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Saracen
> Brian, The Life of
06/08/2016 at 19:33 |
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Not sure!
You can check yourself. http://www.ga-asi.com
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BloodlessWeevil
> BaconSandwich is tasty.
06/08/2016 at 19:33 |
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I do work with emissions/powertrain diagnostic software, but my degree is mechanical. I actually moved to Michigan to avoid being funneled into the aerospace industry. That will be a requirement as all the development work is done here, unless you are willing to go overseas.
Most of the “software” work is actually calibration. I do not know how that compares to Silicon Valley type software work or what you mean by embedded systems (maybe I’ve been working on them for years and never realized it.) I do think it would be similar to agriculture or the petroleum industry though.
You find work by applying on career pages. However, many of the engineers in the industry work for suppliers or consulting firms. As always, unless you are royally incompetent, who you know matters more than what you know.
I’m not sure I answered your question very well, but feel free to ask more of them. If you can help me better understand the work you do, I will try to point you in the right direction.
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BaconSandwich is tasty.
> BloodlessWeevil
06/09/2016 at 11:30 |
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I appreciate the reply. When you say you avoided being funneled into the aerospace industry, is it because it isn’t a good place to be?
Embedded systems generally means working with non-standard hardware - e.g.: writing software that runs on the ECU of a car, as opposed to writing software that runs on a desktop/laptop. I get what you mean about calibration though - we’re currently in the process of calibrating a product we are working on.
Also, totally true about who you know, not what you know. That’s how I’ve had 2/3 jobs in my career so far.
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BaconSandwich is tasty.
> mcseanerson
06/09/2016 at 11:31 |
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Ha ha! So sad, yet it seems to be the case. They have some amazing engineers, and some absolutely brain-dead management.
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BaconSandwich is tasty.
> Saracen
06/09/2016 at 11:33 |
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Your line of work sounds quite interesting as well. There’s something cool about seeing your work moving around, doing its own thing without you explicitly telling it what to do every step of the way (in a sense).
Is that huge GPS outage down that way going to have an effect on things you are working on?
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BaconSandwich is tasty.
> TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts.
06/09/2016 at 11:36 |
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That’d certainly be rough. We had a pretty rough time with baby #1, and the in-laws were a HUGE help. Now with #2 coming along, I’m worried we’ll be relying on them again. Because my mother-in-law doesn’t drive, even moving somewhere out into the country would limit how much she’d be able to help.
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BaconSandwich is tasty.
> JDIGGS
06/09/2016 at 11:37 |
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In a sense, I wonder if that’s why there’s a legitimate fear of Tesla - or why I’ve heard certain automotive manufacturers are looking to snap up a few bodies from silicon valley.
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TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts.
> BaconSandwich is tasty.
06/09/2016 at 11:41 |
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Funnily enough my wife’s mom doesn’t drive either. As they say though, life happens when you are making other plans .
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Saracen
> BaconSandwich is tasty.
06/09/2016 at 12:36 |
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It’s really cool to have a full aircraft fuselage in the lab, and to watch it do stuff, or being able to use sensors while testing software.
I’m sure the GPS outage affects some of our groups, but not mine...at least not directly.
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BloodlessWeevil
> BaconSandwich is tasty.
06/09/2016 at 22:22 |
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The aerospace industry depends a lot on government contracts and I have personal issues with one of the few major players. I said it that way because it is the only major engineering done in the area I grew up, staying there would have forced me into it in some capacity. Aerospace is actually a very good place to be from an objective standpoint (the pay is certainly better,) I just chose to follow my passion instead.
Embedded systems, yep that is all the work on the product itself. However, there is a lot of equipment used in development, testing, and manufacturing that run on PCs. Bosch and AVL are big players in that arena, the dieselnet link is to a directory of emissions test equipment suppliers*
https://www.dieselnet.com/dir_de.php
*That is my area of expertise, so I know that most of that equipment uses PCs.